9 March (Part 3) - Turkish & Delight
Apart from the lame Wonka Experience reference, did the Cabinet Member for Growth say anything worthwhile? Not really.
• Now is the time to come forward with [budget] proposals so they can be scrutinised and adopted if they have merit.
• Being part of [the budget] process is not a priority for the opposition.
• We are met [only] with last minute objections and tweaks.
• If you move CIL [Labour wanted it spent on affordable housing] something else suffers.
• We are already working with BexleyCo to provide affordable homes.
• Data says that Bexley needs larger family homes. “Who is to say that moving CIL money will deliver the most value for money?”
Most of that is verbatim. Councillor Cafer Munur said he didn’t know the answer to his last question but that wouldn’t stop him voting against the Amendment.
Ignorance is bliss.
The next speaker was Councillor Anna Day (Labour, Slade Green) and we heard more
about Government cuts and how they were “straining the Council’s budget to breaking point”.
Her five minute speech included the following…
• Every Councillor has heard about the damp and mould issues in the housing stock and the cost to residents is “immeasurable”.
• 578 households are in temporary accommodation including 1,007 children.
• No one understands why the Council has no plans to improve the situation.
• Bexley Council chose to sell the housing stock and it has a laissez faire attitude.
• When Council officers are asked to assist they reply with “Unfortunately we do not have the luxury of our own stock” and nothing can be done.
• After the demolition of Arthur Street we are still waiting for replacement housing stock five years later.
• BexleyCo has not lived up to its remit but the Amendment offers the opportunity to kick start building.
She concluded by giving some examples of the extreme poverty to be found in her ward.
Maybe Councillor Munur came to realise how his speechifying was totally outclassed but I doubt it. What an Aero head!
Councillor Amaning (Labour, Belvedere) was critical of the “devastating” SEND
report and authorities were suffering from the Government’s “chronic
underfunding”. She didn’t have anything fundamentally new to say so let’s see what Conservative Councillor Kurtis Christoforides had to
add to the debate.
• Did the Leader of the opposition foresee Covid, Ukraine, war in the Middle East,
missiles in the Red Sea and “if he did what would he do differently?”
• Perhaps he would not bother with furlough and business support. The opposition proposals are disingenuous.
• Presumably he would avoid the care services overspends by not spending the money. How would that affect SEND children?
• The Leader of the opposition “decries Council Tax rises so presumably his plan is simply to borrow”.
• If the Council had kept its old housing stock the maintenance bill would have sunk the Council’s finances many many years ago.
• Labour’s promise of “the moon on a stick” for less money is total fantasy.
A few decent points there delivered with only the occasional glance at his notes, a far better performance
by Smartie pants than Bourneville Boy’s. But I still haven’t heard what would happen if a couple of million of CIL money was diverted to BexleyCo
as per the Amendment. My guess is that the real danger is that BexleyCo would spend it on more Golden Hellos and Golden Goodbyes.
Next up was
the delightful Cabinet Member Sue Gower who read from her pre-prepared script. A
Councillor told me yesterday that prepared scripts are easy because the Labour
Group leaks like a sieve. (No I didn’t learn that at the
planned meeting in a pub. That had to be cancelled.)
You have probably heard enough of this for one day so I will go and find
something else to do that does not involve too much exercise. I have not been
right since I slipped on a discarded banana skin last Saturday.